Novotel Mechelen Centrum

... short amount of time, I know…but it was so good). Luckily, I bought more. Even luckier, I discovered the store that I bought the chocolates from also has a location in Versailles. Actually, that may or may not be a good thing.

My next major trip is going to be a grand tour of central Europe for our fall sketch/travel break. If anyone has recommendations for Berlin, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, Budapest, or Prague, let me know!

... Aimee drooled over the Mon Chi Chi's bringing her back to her childhood. Three floors of toys is never a bad thing when you are traveling with children (and Bruce for that matter!).

Being in this part of Europe we were surrounded by history and took some time to appreciate the area in this respect. The Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance is located in Mechelen and was very powerful and ...

There is a museum that is in a cathedral in Mechelen that is hosting an exhibit of 14 Terra Cotta soldiers and various artifacts. We went up on the first Saturday that the exhibit was open to attempt to avoid the crowds. It was a great exhibit and had a lot of good information on the audio guide.

31st May - Amsterdam - Bike Tour We headed into town to the port to find our barge/boat for the start of our Hat Tour: Amsterdam to Brussels bike ride at 12:30. After unpacking we had lunch & introductions, We then went on a 15km ride to North Amsterdam - we took our bikes on the ferry there, then a bridge back, we both did well on the ride. We had a lovely tea on the boat at 6:30, after that we went to a nearby library to use the internet. 1st June - Vianen - Bike ...

... have taken a taxi, we could not even have gotten back into the house. So this entry is for Linda. Thank you Linda and we owe you a fancy dinner. I know where already. Het is 5 wanneer ik uit bed kruip. Ik ween en ween voor Jr. Exact 6h, zijn wij klaar en exact 6h pikt Linda ons op. Hebt u vrienden, die u om 6h in de ochtend voeren? Wij wel! We nemen vanmorgen de trein van Mechelen aan Schiphol, waar wij een ...

... pleasant! Besides the organ of the cathedral that still echoes in my head, they had brought over a gospel group, and when they sang "Amazing Grace" I couldn't stop crying, cause it was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard, more beutiful than hearing a thousand times "I love you", and there were simply no words to fully express my feelings at that time... After the ceremony, the couple fled in a horse carriage and we met them again at a restaurant they had booked ...

... French, the information guy gave us a bit of paper with directions to our hostel - via the underground - along with one of those withering Gallic shrugs where the shoulders and eyebrows go up, but the smile and the rest of the face drop, in a physics-defying manoevere. Somehow we nailed the underground, only to arrive back at the surface at the same time as a nice smattering of precipitation. We powerwalked the short distance to our hostel ...

After a night at the odeon with mareid an carol, I headed straight from the nightclub to de airport for a very over-rated sleep on the floor of the check in of my 6am flight. All I can say is never again. Onto brussels where, somehow without phone or internet or any pre arranged meeting place I managed t meet hannah in the main square of brussels. Both hung over with little sleep we managed a great day sampling as much belgium beer an chocies as possible! We managed even t get what I ...

... morning and explored it by riding around on our bikes. Again very cute... but all of the little towns are starting to look alike now. We decided to make our way towards Germany (as we have to be in Berlin for the 21st) so we went North and went over the famous "Afsluitdijk" which is a 30km long Dijk that they built in the 1920' & 30's to connect two of the isles points. It has been awarded a medal for engineering greatness and it was certainly an interesting drive. We crossed the ...

... It offered a 4-course fixed menu that came with a different beer with each course for about EUR 40 per person. We convinced Chris to give it a shot but the restaurant didn't begin serving dinner for about 30 minutes and we were all pretty hungry so we put down our name and decided to try the other restaurant that was suggested by our B&B. We figured if that looked good, we would skip our reservations at the beer place. The other restaurant, Kaffee de Passage, looked really nice ...